Commentary
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 19 June 2013
To coincide with World No Tobacco Day 2013 (theme: are you being manipulated?), I attended a workshop in the European Parliament: Do tobacco control measures reduce tobacco use: evidence from research and practice . Frankly, it was quite irksome at times. I finally felt obliged to tackle one of the speakers: here’s what happened…
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 19 June 2013
A public health academic is forceful and direct with the misguided opponents and over-zealous regulators of e-cigarettes. He describes the presentation of World Health Organisation’s Roberto Bertollini to a European Parliament workshop as ‘appalling’. This is a measured, compassionate, but quietly angry and exasperated interview by one of Europe’s leading experts on e-cigarettes, Professor Jean-François Etter.I hope everyone involved with the e-cigarette policy debate will take 5 minutes to view this – it says pretty well all that needs to be said. Some quotes I’ve drawn out:
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 19 June 2013
So the MHRA will regulate e-cigarettes as though they are medicines – press release . 10 reasons why is this a bad idea.
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 9 June 2013
Time to discuss the ‘gateway effect’… the idea that e-cigarettes or snus (a form of low risk smokeless tobacco) might be a cause of children taking up high risk cigarette smoking that would not otherwise happen. There’s virtually nothing in this theory – it is largely a campaigning tactic. But you hear much less about the genuine beneficial gateway effects that lead kids away from smoking. As my friend David Sweanor puts it:
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 23 May 2013
When the UK Medicines Regulator (MHRA) consulted in 2010 on whether e-cigarettes should be regulated as medicines, it gave three options: I summarise the first two and quote the third:
Option 1 . Regulate as medicines and withdraw unlicensed products in 21 days
Option 2 . Regulate as medicines and withdraw unlicensed products in a year (June 2011)
Option 3 . “ Do nothing and allow these unregulated products containing nicotine that have not been assessed for safety, quality and efficacy to remain on the market .” [emphasis mine]
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- Category: Gerry Stimson
Gerry Stimson | 23 May 2013
In a letter to MEPs on the EU Parliament ENVI Committee, regarding the proposed regulation of electronic cigarettes in the draft Tobacco Products Directive, Professor Gerry Stimson makes the case for ‘twin-track’ regulation
April 22, 2013
Dear Member,
I am writing to you concerning the draft Tobacco Products Directive and in particular Article 18 which seeks to regulate nicotine containing products (NCP) - including electronic cigarettes - as medicinal products.